King Grol's Chamber
While still at Wyvern Tor, everyone realized they didn’t have a spare bag to put the Orc Chief or Ogre’s heads in, so Zinda tore the two patches off of her Robe of useful things depicting sacks. Oddly one of them upon materializing one of them weighed 15 pounds but when she looked into it she could only see a black void. Zinda took a nearby stone and put it in the bag. The stone seemingly disappeared into the void. She reached in again to try and grab the stone and she was able to retrieve it. Aellora cast Identify upon the bag and found it to be a Bag of Holding. They then Went back to Phandalin and upon returning they went to the Townmaster’s Hall and showed him the head of the Orc Cheif as proof that they dealt with the Orcs up at Wyvern Tor. He promptly paid them for their help and asked them to keep Grok away from him because he didn’t like the way Grok looked at him. After finishing up at the townmaster’s hall they then checked in with Sister Garaele at the Shrine of Luck. They gave Sister Garaele the information that they had learned from Agatha, and she thanked them and gave them the other two Healing Potions she had promised. They told her that someone else had given them a question to ask Agatha and wanted to know if she had anything else that could be offered to Agatha to persuade her to answer a question. Sister Garaele explained that she was only able to get her hands on such a fine comb through her connections with the Harpers and that obtaining another would come at a high cost. She also warned that Agatha is a formidable foe and that her previous encounter with her was nearly fatal. From there they went to see Daran Edermath to let them know what they had learned at the Old Owl Well. When they told him that Hamun Kost was there and trying to learn who built the Old Owl Well, Daran was pleased to learn this information and informed them that he knows of Hamun, and that from his experience Hamun does not necessarily have evil intentions that he fears that Hamun’s quest to learn ancient arcane secrets could corrupt him. Daran was not aware of who exactly built the Old Owl Well, but was aware that it was constructed by members of the Netheril Empire, but Daran told them that this information relatively well known, and that Hamun probably was looking for more specific information. Daran told everyone that they were welcome to stay with them once again, but for the time being they wanted to catch up to Jass and Grok. Jass and Grok had been drinking with U’Mella at the Inn’s bar and during which Jass noticed that at some point 10 GP went missing from her bag and she immediately blamed Grok, and Grok in a haze of confusion didn’t argue. When everyone else arrived at the Inn U’Mella at first tried to sell a useless bottle or colored water to Bubbles as a powerful potion, but Jass interjected and told everyone not to buy anything from U’Mella, but other than that he was a pretty cool guy. She drunkenly filled everyone in on their adventures from the previous few days, but left out the part where she almost killed Grok. They also discussed their need to go to Cragmaw Castle to save Gundren, but first people needed to tend to some business. Donnie went to see Xander Zibit (You can call him X) and she picked up the wagon that she had left with him to be modified. This wagon form the outside looks a lot like an unkempt bush (great for camouflage), but on the inside it has been modified to have a lush interior with comfortable bedrolls, pillows, a barrel full of cheap wine, etc. Everyone was quite impressed with the wagon which Donnie Names the “Sanctuary of Extravagant Xendochial Wagon” or S.E.X. wagon for short. Jass looked to keep herself busy by working and went to the local smith to work on silvering her great axe. Grok went to the Shrine of Luck to take the Oath of the Crown, but as he prayed to Tyr the skies began to darken as clouds collected overhead. He heard the voice of Tyr gruffly chuckle at Groks attempt to ask of his favor and as Tyr told him that he was not worthy a bolt of lightning struck the Shrine of Luck causing great damage. At that time, the voice of Shar entered Groks mind offering him power and help to forget his losses. Grok agreed and suddenly a dark energy began to envelop him. Groks armor began to turn into a dark back and he began to laugh maniacally with this new power surging through him. As the darkness had just about fully taken over Grok suddenly a burst of light rose up from Trensendar Manor and began to rocket straight towards Grok as it approached they could see that this light was in the shape of a Hawk. The hawk flew into Grok’s chest returning a portion of it back to its original steel grey in the shape of the hawk. Grok could now feel the spirit of Aldith Tresendar protecting him from being fully corrupted by Shar’s darkness. Upon seeing the destruction that Grok caused to the shrine of Tymora U’Mella took a swing at Grok, but as a wave of soberness game over Grok her dodged U’mella’s punch just in time, and U’Mella fell to the ground. U’Mella quickly got to his feet and asked Gork what he had done to his lady’s shrine, and set to help fix the shrine up a bit. Grok shrugged off the whole thing not caring for what had been done to the shrine. Aellora wanted to spend some time focusing on her connection to the gods and had hoped to speak with Sister Garaele, but after what had happened at the shrine Sister Garaele was busy with fixing the shrine and Aellora instead did some time studying with Donnie. Zinda Spent some time out in the woods because she was feeling a bit out of place in town, and Kuro just wanted to lay a bit low and relax. That night much of the party took Daran up on his offer to stay at his farm for free, Donnie parked the S.E.X wagon outside and offered her “gratitude” for his kindness. But he embarrassed himself slightly when they showed each other their gratitude again in the morning. Bubbles had his interest perked at the idea of making potions when he heard about the “Ice Grenade” that U’Mella Tried to sell to Jass. So in the morning he inquired with Daran, (fresh from his embarrassing performance) if he had any books on alchemy or potion making. Daran had a book on some of the very basics of Alchemy which he leant to Bubbles, as long as he didn’t talk to Donnie about him too much. Bubbles was happy to obtain the book and he began to study. After Jass finished up working on her Great Axe, everyone set out for Cragmaw Castle. Now that Jass and Grok knew where to find it it only took them a day’s travel to get there. Once they had the castle in their sights everyone started to make a plan for how to approach the castle with the long distance that they had to cover. After a lot of discussion they decided to have Aellora create a diversion at the main entrance with a card from her Deck of Illusions, while everyone else make their way up to the side entrance to sneak in. However, as soon as they kicked off their plan by gathering around and using the packet of Dust of Disappearance that Zinda had they were surprised to find that it was not actually Dust of Disappearance, but instead it was Dust of Sneezing and Coughing. Most of the Party began to cough uncontrollably attracting the attention of two groups of scouts out in the woods. It took a bit of time for many members of the party to catch their breath enough to get into the fight, but eventually they all recovered and got into the fight. The scouts were taken out relatively quickly after everyone recovered from their coughing fits. Everyone became wary of the second packet of dust and began to discuss alternate plans as to how to approach the castle. Among the chaos of this discussion some advice game from the least likely of places when Uvula pointed out that the Red Brands were working with the Cragmaws and that maybe they could sneak up wearing the cloaks they had stolen from the Red Brands. Everyone put on some of the red coaks and began to approach the castle. All was going well, and when they got to the door they found it was locked. Aelora managed to pick the lock and then everyone entered with Uvula leading the way. Uvula peeked thrrough a curtain that was in front of the group, but no one was there. Grok then opened a door that much of the group had moved past and found that through the door was what appeared to be the dining chamber of the castle with thirteen goblins who all turned their focus to him. Grok quickly told them that Glasstaff sent them to meet with King Grol and they pointed him in the right direction. He closed the door and Aelora locked it behind them. As they continued through the castle they locked any doors that they found and eventually made their way through to where King Grol’s Chamber was. They peeked through a nearby curtain and saw some HobGoblins settling down to rest. Kuro Stood at the curtain ready to strike should the Hobgoblins be alerted to their presence. Listening at King Grol’s door they heard two voices arguing and discussing payment for a map. While this discussion was happening the party burst through the door and began to attack King Grol and everyone else in the chamber. The chamber held King Grol, two other Bugbears, a wolf, an unconscious Dwarf that Jass recognized to be her cousin Gundren, and what appeared to be a female Drow. Jass and Grok made a couple initial attacks, then Bubble cast Thunderwave forcing everyone a bit further from the door into the room. U’Mella cast suggestion on King Grol telling him to try and kill the Drow, and Donnie cast silence on the room for fear that the Drow would be the Black Spider to make sure he couldn’t cast spells. As the battle continued on Zinda Kept watch with Uvula that they were not attacked from behind and Kuro was ready for the Hobgoblins who heard the Thunderwave and began to come help defend their king… Unfortunately the first guy through the curtain got his skull almost completely caved in by Kuro’s Warhammer. Another hobgoblin tried to go around the madman with a hammer, but found that the door out of the room was locked. Many of King Grol’s men focused their attacks on Jass, but her furious rage towards the creatures that abducted Gundren helped her push through the pain. She was also fortunate that U’Mella’s suggestion seemed to help influence King Grol to focus his aggression at the Drow he had been arguing with rather than these people who were attacking him. As the Hobgoblins continued to try to fight their way out of their room Kuro finished off the one with the bashed in skull knocking him into one of the other Hobgoblins and knocking him prone. U’Mella shamed the hobgoblin who was knocked over by the other hobgoblin to death. As things were looking to go poorly for the Drow she tried to make a run for it, but Grok got one last swing in at her as she fled for another door in the room and he struck her down. As she fell her form slowly began to shift into a nondescript humanoid form that was recognized to be a Doppelganger. Not much longer after that the fight came to an end as Bubble’s burned King Grol to death with his flaming sphere. Everyone checked around for anything valuable and they managed to find Gundren’s map. They woke up Gundren and he informed them that he and his brothers had located the Wave Echo Cave and that his brothers were going to head there ahead of Gundren while he collected the supplies that the party was originally hired to bring to Phandalin. Everyone decided to take a little rest in King Grol’s Chamber before moving on. Prev: Scouting and Scrapping